ht into the town. The vineae having been
quickly brought up against the town, a mound thrown up, and towers
built, the Gauls, amazed by the greatness of the works, such as they had
neither seen nor heard of before, and struck, also, by the despatch of
the Romans, send ambassadors to Caesar respecting a surrender, and
succeed in consequence of the Remi requesting that they [the Suessiones]
might be spared.

XIII.--Caesar, having received as hostages the first men of the state,
and even the two sons of king Galba himself; and all the arms in the
town having been delivered up, admitted the Suessiones to a surrender,
and led his army against the Bellovaci. Who, when they had conveyed
themselves and all their possessions into the town called Bratuspantium,
and Caesar with his army was about five miles distant from that town,
all the old men, going out of the town, began to stretch out their hands
to Caesar, and to intimate by their voice that they would throw
themselves on his protection and power, nor would contend in arms
against the Roman people. In like manner, when he had come up to the
town, and there pitched his camp, the boys and the women from the wall,
with outstretched hands, after their custom, begged peace from the
Romans.

XIV.--For these Divitiacus pleads (for after the departure of the
Belgae, having dismissed the troops of the Aedui, he had returned to
Caesar). "The Bellovaci had at all times been in the alliance and
friendship of the Aeduan state; that they had revolted from the Aedui
and made war upon the Roman people, being urged thereto by their nobles,
who said that the Aedui, reduced to slavery by Caesar, were suffering
every indignity and insult. That they who had been the leaders of that
plot, because they perceived how great a calamity they had brought upon
the state, had fled into Britain. That not only the Bellovaci, but also
the Aedui, entreated him to use his [accustomed] clemency and lenity
towards them [the Bellovaci]: which if he did, he would increase the
influence of the Aedui among all the Belgae, by whose succour and
resources they had been accustomed to support themselves whenever any
wars occurred."

XV.--Caesar said that on account of his respect for Divitiacus and the
Aeduans, he would receive them into his protection, and would spare
them; but, because the state was of great influence among the Belgae,
and pre-eminent in the number of its population, he demanded 600
hostages. Whe